Let Go of Meaning Itself

   During the bus ride home today, I was reading a copy of a book of Chan and Zen teachings by Charles Luk, and I came across the following line from the introduction to "The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment":



"We should never stray from our 'Self' and should know how to take up the 'host' position, because if we allow our mind to wander outside in quest of externals, we will slip into the 'guest' position and will see only the indicating finger instead of the moon actually pointed at in the sutras" (p.152)



For some reason, as I read this particular passage, I felt a certain kind of calm which comes from 'letting go'. The letting go happens not because I found this particular passage 'satisfying' or compelling to read. Quite to the contrary: it is in exhausting any satisfaction in what I was reading that I suddenly had this moment of still quiet, where there was simply nothing left for me to really do or push myself to do. I am not surprised that in certain religions, one might impute this as being an 'act of grace', since it honestly didn't come to me at all from my own abilities or powers. In fact, the very understanding that it didn't left me in a state of awe and gratitude, for whatever it was that allowed me to rest in that moment.



This 'grace' of letting go I am describing is actually not so simple as it seems. One in fact has to struggle a bit to go through the exhaustion of no longer finding a satisfying answer to their existential position in life. In this passage I was describing before, there is the further clarification: "The 'host' position can be taken only after our mind has been stripped of all worldly feelings and passions by means of our immanent wisdom." (ibid). Now that is a bit of a violent image, to be 'stripped' of one's worldly desires and passions, and yet, could this be the letting go/exhaustion of the senses I was referring to?



In many points of a person's life, particularly in depression, one's previous satisfactions seem jaded. It's the same way when one adopts or at least tries to deeply understand a particular spiritual tradition. It is almost designed in such a way that eventually one will see the teachings like cotton in one's mouth and want to spit it all out...because, in a sense, it has no flavor whatsoever! In that moment,one has many choices, but perhaps the only thing they can do is really accept the existential anguish and frustration of not being able to intellectually grasp what one is looking for. Yes, one also needs humor! But if I can courageously stare at the frustration, it tends to be a lot more manageable. And what is the gift of that? The gift is to come home to this 'just being' that is inherent to the moment, and might also be known as one's 'immanent wisdom'. And it is the just being that comes from not striving anymore, not even striving to get out of one's self-imposed cave. Why? Because one knows that any struggle to escape is just another manifestation of the prison of self. And it too will only lead to greater frustration and anguish.



Eventually when the pain itself just seems incredibly unbearable, there is this space of complete surrender to the moment, without waiting for the next or trying to step out of the previous. There is simply no struggle anymore, at that point. And then when I am reading this kind of text, I am no longer even trying to fathom its meaning intellectually. I try to open up to this text as though it were a mirror to something that I am confident exists within me, even though I can’t really taste it, or touch it or find it ‘stimulating’ in any way. This is the faith that these words I am reading point to mind itself, without further ‘understanding’ needed to add to it.



Luk, Charles (trans) (1962 )Chan and Zen Teaching, Third Series. London: Rider and Company